convulsionary

American  

[kuhn-vuhl-shuh-ner-ee] / kənˈvʌl ʃəˌnɛr i /

adjective

1. of or affected with convulsion.

---

noun

convulsionaries plural

1. a person who has convulsions, especially as a result of religious experience.

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• convulsionaries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of convulsionary

First recorded in 1735–45; convulsion + -ary

Example Sentences

Madame de Staël has something of it; St. Pierre; and down onwards to the present astonishing convulsionary ‘Literature of Desperation,’ it is everywhere abundant.

From Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Carlyle, Thomas

He was a convulsionary, and his head would be found wedged into tight places whence it could hardly be extracted. 

From Cock Lane and Common-Sense by Lang, Andrew

The joy and sorrow of Stevenson was to find a society "in much the same convulsionary and transitional state" as the Highlands and Islands after 1745.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 1 (of 25) by Lang, Andrew

At considerable intervals I had two or three attacks of convulsionary fits.

From The Opium Habit by Day, Horace B.

As that youth was an useless, false, convulsionary, and hysterical patient, no one was likely to want to keep him, if he could do better.

From Historical Mysteries by Lang, Andrew